HAMILTON — With more and more illiterate adults asking for help, literacy programs across the state have come to a simple conclusion: They can’t do it alone.

In the hopes of freeing up resources to focus on literacy education, eight local and statewide nonprofit groups — including Literacy Volunteers of Mercer County — have merged into Literacy New Jersey, one organization that will offer programs for illiterate and non-English speaking adults throughout the state.

In 2012-13, the groups provided nearly 8,000 students with free services, but business operations often require just as much attention as classroom activity, Literacy New Jersey CEO Elizabeth Gloeggler said last week.

“We can do things better, more effectively and more efficiently by joining forces,” Gloeggler said. “Our whole idea was to bring together all of our strengths and tackle this problem together.”

Instead of each group devoting time and energy to behind-the-scenes operations — such as serving on boards, filling out IRS forms and conducting audits — the whole business side of the operation will be based out of Literacy New Jersey’s headquarters in Roselle.

At the local level, staff and volunteers — such as Mercer County director Cheryl Kirton and her staff in Hamilton — can devote all their efforts to literacy education.

While she was working in the same role as the head of Literacy Volunteers of Mercer County, Kirton’s day-to-day responsibilities often consisted of more business work than education.

“As an executive director, I wore many hats — I’m a grant writer, I’m out there fundraising — so I didn’t really have a chance to see what we needed to be offering our students,” Kirton said.

With more attention devoted to the educational side, Kirton has already begun looking into ways to offer more programs, including English as a Second Language conversation and group sessions, as a way to complement students’ weekly instruction with volunteer tutors.

“Our students need more than a two-hour class with our volunteers,” Kirton said. “They need more time, and now I can really take a look at our structure and see where we can offer more classes.”

In addition to literacy classes, Literacy New Jersey also offers citizenship classes for new immigrants, GED preparation classes and basic skills programs for adults with learning disabilities, Gloeggler said.

“There’s no duplication of services; We’re an organization that helps people at the lowest level,” Gloeggler said. “When you can’t read at all, we’re the only place to go. And we’re the group that accommodates: Our ESL students are often working multiple jobs and can’t do 20- or 30-hour programs each week. Our programs can fill that need.”
Interest in the program has consistently been on the rise, Gloeggler said, but the organization still needs more volunteer tutors to educate its students.

Although Literacy New Jersey handles about 2,500 tutors, Gloeggler said it’s simply not enough.

“Because our students are often not standing on the table telling people they can’t read, people forget about adult illiteracy and all the adults out there struggling to read or speak English. It affects every facet of their life,” Gloeggler said. “When’s the last time you saw a politician saying, ‘We need to solve adult literacy?’”

“It’s so underfunded and so underlooked and yet, if we look at all the social issues, there’s often a parent struggling to support their family underneath it who can’t read or speak English,” Gloeggler said.

Kirton has had students who rave about their quality of life after going through the program, including one woman who now serves on Literacy New Jersey’s community board.

“She didn’t feel intimated by her tutor, and she’s been very vocal in some of her suggestions,” Kirton said. “She wants to be an ambassador of literacy.”